Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards recognize outstanding conservation achievements

Mar 2011

GreenTown volunteer Gary Hedden attended the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards on Tuesday, March 22, World Water Day. These awards go to organizations, agencies, businesses and individuals whose programs and leadership have advanced water conservation in Silicon Valley. During the ceremony Gary observed the passion that so many people bring to this cause with the award highlights being:

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies now treats their waste water for reuse as make-up water for their cooling towers, saving 70 million gallons per year!!
San Jose State University now recycles water for irrigation, toilet flushing and other uses, saving 80 million gallons per year.
ET Water Systems supplies high-tech irrigation management systems that use real time weather data to control the sprinklers, allowing homeowners and businesses to reduce water use by as much as 50%.
Our City Forest. This San Jose non-profit promotes the value of trees to purify our air and water as well as cool our cities.
And Ken and Sally Coverdell with Blue Sky Designs and Blue Sky Farms in Half Moon Bay, show what individuals can do. They reduced their water use by 80% by converting to native landscape and capturing storm water runoff.

As a side note, the event was held at the Humane Society Silicon Valley in Milpitas. This is a new facility built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification standards. The society wanted a facility that was beautiful and healthy for their animals while being energy and water efficient. They use extensive natural lighting, solar power, water-efficient kennel washing and much more. The facility is quiet and the dogs and cats “on display” seem very happy as they play with some of the 800 volunteers who help out. Outside they created low areas to capture rain and irrigation water that can seep down to the aquifer below. Finally, their landscaping uses a combination of native plants and artificial grass, saving thousands of dollars a year in watering and mowing.

For more information on the awards, visit http://www.waterawards.org/